A Don McCormack column: Little Jenna still going strong

DON McCORMACK
Star Beacon

June 23, 2009 01:49 am

— Paying another visit to the variety store...

Going strong
Back on Oct. 12, 2008, we brought the saga of tiny Jenna Timonere to these pages.
The daughter of Jim and Janice and sister of Jimmy, Jenna was born on Sept. 8, 2008 at Lake East Hospital in Madison.
However, Jenna was born with Turner’s Syndrome, which affects approximately 1 in every 2,500 baby girls. It resulted in her being born with a narrow aortic artery.
Which meant she needed heart surgery.
Now, some nine months since she came into this world, Jenna is home in a house full of love, her daddy, the head football coach at SS. John and Paul High School, said.
“Things are going just great,” Timonere, who is CEO of the Ashtabula Area Chamber of Commerce in the real world, said. “We just had a checkup and the doctor said he doesn’t want to see us for another six months.”
Jenna is obviously a fighter. Consider — 90 to 95 percent of infants afflicted with Turner’s Syndrome don’t even come to term.
“We know we are truly blessed,” Timonere said. “Getting through that heart surgery was such a gigantic hurdle for Jenna.
“So the fact she just passed the 9-month date is so special to us. We’ve learned to cherish every single day and shower her and Jimmy with all the love we can.”
It’s been a difficult year for Timonere. Jenna’s life-threatening situation and the passing of his grandfather and beloved colleague John Buskirk have combined to put his family through an emotional wringer.
“It’s been a very, very trying year, most definitely,” he said. “It’s been so terribly hard on so many people, but we are relying on our faith and the love and support of so many friends.
“We’re doing our best to forge ahead.”

King of the...
Behind the new junior high and high school going up in Jefferson is a mountain of sorts — it consists of all of the dirt that has been moved during the construction of the new buildings.
The pile has reached a height that it’s almost as tall — it not taller — than the new two-story buildings being erected next to it.
So, is Jefferson planning on fielding a motocross team in the fall when the drawbridges go up and the new buildings are opened?
“No, I don’t think so,” Jefferson Principal J.C. Montanaro said through a laugh. “I don’t see that happening.”
Actually, the massive pile of soil will fill a purpose — literally.
“That pile of dirt is going to be used to fill in the hole that’s created when the old building is taken down,” he said. “It’s going to be quite a crater.”
Until then, though, there is a mountain in Jefferson for the first time.
Just call it, “Mount Montanaro.”

Fast track
Montanaro admits even he is surprised at how fast the new Falcon Pride Stadium is being put together.
“Actually, I’m amazed,” he said. “It seems like just yesterday we were having facilities meetings and asking, ‘Can we get turf?’
“Now, they’re getting close to the point where that turf is actually installed.”
McCormack is the sports editor of the Star Beacon. Reach him at donmac@suite224.net.

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